Finding a way to make finance less sacred

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(A slogan hung by activists blows in the wind in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London October 23, 2011 Anti-capitalist protesters set up a second campsite in London's financial district on Saturday, after a first encampment they established a week ago forced St Paul's Cathedral to close. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor)

Has finance become a â€śfalse divinity in the worldâ€ť? Pope Benedict XVI thinks so. â€śWe see that the world of finance can dominate the human being,â€ť he has said. â€ś[It is] no longer an instrument to foster well-beingâ€¦ [it] becomes a power that oppresses, that almost demands worship.â€ť

As well as warming the hearts of banker-haters everywhere, the Popeâ€™s criticism is well aimed. Not only did the finance industryâ€™s arrogance help spur crisis and recession, but thereâ€™s something dangerous at the core of finance. The human good can all too easily be lost when peopleâ€™s past work and future hopes are expressed in purely monetary terms.

In the Old Testament, the ancient Israelites were warned that too rigid a view of financial obligations is cruel and socially divisive. Aristotle added another essential objection. The ancient Greek philosopher pointed out that monetary wealth can keep on increasing forever â€” unlike our appetite for the things that money can buy. Yet while the worldly infinity of finance is alluring, it is ultimately false. Money has no human meaning on its own, but only when it serves a meaningful purpose.

The risks of inhumane finance may be eternal, but the Pope is also alluding to a more modern problem â€“ the treatment of finance as a sort of god, and financiers as its priests. Consider four manifestations of the quasi-religious approach.